


Bending moonlight

by Moonpeach



Series: As the horizon clears, you wipe the tears [1]
Category: Black Panther (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Erik goes home the series, Erik is cautious, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Mention of N'Jobu
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-23
Updated: 2018-03-23
Packaged: 2019-04-06 17:32:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14061894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonpeach/pseuds/Moonpeach
Summary: When Erik first noticed the odd space ship in the sky glide past and hover a couple feet over the old apartment northside, he couldn’t help but feel like something wasn’t right.





	Bending moonlight

At first, he almost didn’t notice it. 

Playing ball with his friends, as it’s passed from person to person. The courtyard a loud roar of vigorous movement that sways and swirls around him like serpent tides. The crowd is voluble, pestering and clamoring at his ears, but his eyes pick at something in the skies and he can’t help but pause and drown everything out for just a moment. 

Something feels funny, and his chest billows with an unsettling rapt of solicitude even as the ground around shuffles with sneakers and careless banter from the others, who pay him no mind as he stands there. He look at the skies, searching for something. 

He knows he’s not going crazy, but what just buzzed by? 

It’s hard to catch it in the clouds, they blanket too much, and he has to squint but the figure and shape was apparent enough that he couldn’t miss the glow. Couldn’t miss the way the lights swished and swayed against the waves of the wind and washed over the undersides of the clouds powder white hills before blinking out completely, like a ghost. Nonexistent. 

He blinks, squinches his eyes more. Weird. 

“ Erik!” 

A shout from somewhere alerts him, attention snapping as his eyes drop from the sky to the group of boys still playing ball. They stand there, varying looks of expectance. He suspects something’s wrong and raises his brow some. Before feeling something knock against his shoes. 

“ You gonna pick up the ball?” 

His eyes averts their gaze, looks to where the ball nudges at the tips of his dirty sneakers, and grabs at it. It’s thrown back to a teammate before he even has a chance to process his own stupor, gathering back his air to speak. “ Sorry.” 

“ You doing okay man?” One of the boys says, still studying him, the others have taken off, back to their own antics and the game restarts. 

He wants to say he is, but a part of him has been on edge ever since he left his father’s apartment. He hadn’t felt like leaving today, wanting to spend more time with his father and read up on the stories he had found in the book stored away in their shared closet. But he was brushed aside, dismissed and told to go out for the day. His father would be busy. 

And maybe it was the way he said it, maybe it was how quick he was escorted out, maybe it was the way his father’s face turned up. Grim and the icy look in his eyes seemed to coat up whatever feeling of nervousness he was hiding from Erik. He didn’t know. But he knew he didn’t like that look, and he knew his father wouldn’t just urge him out the house unless it was urgent business or something else. 

It felt off. He can’t shake off whatever weird wired up feeling this is blistering inside of his chest and he turns to look towards the window of their apartment. Something is wrong, he knows it. 

“ Erik, you still playin’?” the boy asks, shorter and more lankier than him, he still stands a few feet away from Erik as he watches the windows, searching the curtains for movement. Something like concern is chasing those words around Erik’s head, but he’s too busy and too unfocused to worry about the courtyard game anymore. He’s more on edge than he’s ever been now, feet parted away as he starts to step towards the hole in the busted steel fence. 

“ Hey! Where you going?” The boy blurts, feet scuffling the ground as if he was moving to follow, arm extending out to reach, but stops. Erik keeps going, his hands leaving his side for his pockets and works into a more brisk pace. 

“ Play without me!” he half yells over his shoulder, bending down to move under the ruptured hole in the fence, a hand pulls out to aid him, fingers careful not to scratch on any sharp knots. “ I’m going home. It’s getting late.” 

He doesn’t hear them make any kind of response to it, and doesn't care to heed to it if they did, he just keeps going. His sneakers slapping against the pavement as he moves more quickly, stepping over the unfixed cavities of the street before reaching his destination. The door handle feels like a heavy weight in his hand, squeezing once and pulling it just enough for his tiny body to slip in and he heads inside, careful of his way up the stairs. 

* * *

When he reaches the end of the steps and finds the indenture of the hallway that leads to the door of his apartment, the flutters of unease in his chest starts to seismically expand. Every new step he takes makes the stumbles in his legs wobbly, makes his eyes gaze with a glint of apprehension, and his hands feel clammy, fidgeting for a distraction with the wall as he stands still and pressed close to the corner. 

He can hear voices, calm but there’s a glimmer of something beneath the surface that Erik can’t quite decipher very well. His body stops at the top of the steps, wanting to turn his head to peek around the corner, but he’s hesitant to do so. Which is a weird feeling to him, he’s never been one to be afraid to confront things head on. But something about this situation, just… the feel of it, is suffocatingly foreign to him in ways that he doesn’t like to think about. 

And something about what he saw in the sky, past the thick blankets of clouds and pouring moonlight. He knows he saw something there. He wasn’t going crazy. 

Something’s wrong. 

When he finally inhales and breaths through the stream of his nose, he moves out from the corner. Preparing himself for what may lie awaiting him at his doorstep and is stopped momentarily by a figure who come into his field of vision a little too quickly for him to react in time. 

Erik freezes in place, noting the unfamiliar clothing of the woman standing before him. Cladded entirely in red based armor, with a spear that laid tightly gripped in her hand. She eyes him carefully, studying his face and build before turning to look towards the others behind her. 

“My king.” 

She utters the words, and two other figures in the hallway stop their muted conversation to post their gaze with Erik’s jittery wide eyes. 

He recognizes the one on the left--James, and the man approaches him instantaneously, a hurried quirk in his step that makes a spot of nervousness arise in Erik. 

“ Erik!” He speaks, voice chilled with something unknown, and Erik’s shoulders stiffens. “ There you are. I’ve been meaning to come and get you, I was- I needed to-- It is good that you are here, come. We have to go.” 

Erik doesn’t understand, the words blur a bit around him as he casts glances between the other figures in the hallway. Eyes pinballing between the women and the man that stands by the door of his apartment, hand firmly grasped against the doorknob and the sleek black look of his clothing. 

It takes him a second to realize who that is, alarm rising steadily. 

“ Erik.” James tries again, shaking the boy. “ Erik look at me.” 

“ What’s going on?” he says, voice cracked, part of him wants to step back, escape whatever this is. 

“ We need to go Erik, we need to leave. It’s..” He hesitates, as if thinking of what to say next. It does not quell the distilled sense of dread filling up in Erik, festering and gnawing quietly at his chest. “ The situation has turned bad for us. It has..Your father--” 

The mention of his father snaps his attention instantly to James. Rising up. “ What about my dad? What’s going on?” 

The man- who Erik knows as the Black Panther, through the stories his father would tell, steps forward towards the two of them. His eyes solely focused on James. “ Is this the boy?” 

James turns, “ Yes this is him. This is Prince N’Jadaka, son of N’Jobu. He is the one.” 

The man eyes flicker from James to Erik. “ Does he know of Wakanda?” 

“ I-” 

“ What’s going on!” Erik yells, pulling his body away from the prying hands of James. He shoots an accusatory look at the man cladded in black. “ What’s wrong with my Dad?” 

The man does not answer him, only continuing his questioning. “ Did your father ever tell you of Wakanda?” 

“ Of course he told me!” Erik spits, feeling his fingers clench into small fists, stepping back. “ Why does that matter? What’s going on, where is he?” 

The man momentarily frowns, eyeing Erik with a look he could only describe as uncertainty. As if he couldn’t find the words to explain to him what the hell was going on. It only made to infuriate him more the longer the silence prolonged. 

James comes to stand, realizing that Erik will not swayed from this easily, he puts his gaze to the boy still blistering with agitation. 

“ Erik, this man is King T’Chaka. The king of Wakanda and the Black Panther. He is here, because..” James swallows, gathering his thoughts. “ He came here on word of the supplies that the men were to come and collect. I have told him everything. The meeting did not go as planned and your father he is…” 

“He is what?” Erik whispers, feeling his hands shake. 

James tries to speak, but his words die as his own words waiver off into a distilled unfavorable sadness. “ Erik I...I am sorry.” 

T’Chaka twists his gaze from Erik to James, a frown pulls like a thread on his lips. 

Erik feels the ground crumble beneath his feet. 

It’s like a flash of movement, a push and a shove, and there’s yelling in his ears, hot searing panic strikes the chord of his throat and before he’s even at the door he feels a hand tries to impede his steps. Hears someone plead for him not to go in, but he needs to. Because he can’t be right about this, he can’t be right about his own gut instincts. He can’t be right about the prolonging thread of anxiety that’s been billowing up inside of him for past couple of minutes since he walked into this building. Since he stood outside and watch that odd spacecraft glide low between the clouds. 

One of the women in red has a hand on his shoulder, gently pushing back away from the door, she’s a wall between him and his father, and his own moves to shoves her hand away. “ Move.” 

She stays where she is, undeterred. 

“ Erik!” he hears the panicked snap of James voice. “ Please, you do not want to see it. I promise you..” 

“ Let me in!” He screams, ignoring everything around him, throwing his hands to the side, fists clenched and the spout of tears starts to swell somewhere beneath his angered gaze. “ Let me see my dad!” 

James is by his side in an instant, hands collected over his shoulders, trying to soothe the rage that’s consumes the young boy before him. His face no longer trying to hide the pain it’s been pushing away for a while. “ Erik please.. You must come with me..” 

“Let me see him!” He thrashes, sneakers kick, arms twist, he wrenches away, suddenly uncomfortable with the people here before him, suddenly scared, and he stumbles backwards against the wall, before coming forward towards the woman. “ GET OUT OF THE WAY, I WANT TO SEE MY DAD!” 

“ Erik!” 

“ I want to see him! I want to see him! Let me see my dad! I WANT MY DAD!” 

T’Chaka, watches the scene like a spectator, feeling the strings of his heart tug. He watches as the boy practically flings himself towards the Dora Milaje, her stance faulting as James-- no, Zuri pushes between the two, catching the boy in his arms and holds him in place. Watches the way his nephew screams for his father as he claws his fingers into the cloth of Zuri’s shirt, giving up, and legs fall to the floor with exhausted creaks. It’s painful to watch, his gaze falls slow to the floor as his guilt builds the more the he hears the boy cry out and watches the pained look of Zuri hold him down closer into his chest the more he struggles. 

He feels a sense of shame come over him, feels it worm something unforgivably vile inside his chest and exhales. There will be no easy way to explain this, and he knows this even as he finds himself unable to step forward and enter the circle of agony that wrings itself around the bodies of his advisor and his brother’s son. It may be better not to say anything, to lie about it but. It will come up in the future, and he feels as though he cannot leave things here as they are now. Not with the boy here, not like this. 

Erik breathes shallows sobs into the shape of James shoulder, his words muted but loud enough that T’Chaka can still feel its solemn ache between empty gasps. 

James continues to hold him, refusing to let go. He mutters apologies every few seconds, hands tightly grasped around the boy like he fears he will break like glass if he doesn't. T’Chaka doesn’t have to look to know there’s tears present beneath their eyes and he finally steps forward. 

“ Erik..” 

The boy’s movement is slow at first, head peeked over the shoulder of James. He doesn’t say a word. 

T’Chaka parts his lips, choosing words carefully. “I am sorry for this. I truly wish there was something I could do.” 

Erik blinks, and the look in his eyes stays watery and far off, as if thinking. “ Who did it?” he says, voice hoarse and cracked. T’Chaka feels his heart break more. 

“ I cannot say.” is the only thing he says, and the lie feels disgusting coming off his tongue, twisting his gaze to James, reaffirming his bleak expression. “ I am deeply sorry.” 

He lets them pick themselves up together and does not interfere with their grievances. 

* * *

“ We cannot leave him here.” Zuri says, as they prepare to board the craft, the wind picking at the skip of the engines as it roars, T’Chaka watches the skies. 

“ I know.” he says, still looking past the clouds, his mind seems to lingers on the details, of what he will have to tell Ramonda when they return, of what to tell the council. 

“ You agree with my reasoning then?” 

T’Chaka looks to the craft and sees the the way the light pulls over the sleek build of its exteriors. Takes notices of the way the moon’s light seems to bend against the reflection on the surface and thinks of how different things could have gone tonight concerning his brother. 

They could have handle this better, he could have been more careful, maybe the gun could have been knocked from his hands, maybe he could have pushed Zuri, maybe he could have been better in reaction.But would it have been enough. Would his brother have stopped there? 

He will never know. 

And his brother’s son, his nephew, that was a something he could not overlook. He was not prepared to face that consequence, to come in contact with the boy at all. They had planned to leave as soon as the action has been taken, and they had planned to lie, planned to leave as they had no reason to stay. But the boy had came in time. Maybe through intuition, maybe through gut feeling. T’Chaka will never know. But he is aware of one thing. 

That the boy would grow to be troubled if left to stay here on his own. And having seen the wrecked that became of Erik when finding out that his suspicions of his father’s death were right, made the guilt in T’Chaka spiral in ways that he felt were uncontrollable. Yet he said nothing and has told the boy nothing of what had truly happened 

For his own guilt and for the boy’s own sake, he will not let that boy stay here. 

“I do. We cannot leave him here, not after what has transpired. He will need a new home, and we shall think of this as repentance for my own mistake.” He says, and his fingers gripped together underneath the fabric of his cloak. 

Out of the corner of his eye, he can Erik coming forward with the Dora Milaje near behind. 

Zuri nods, “I understand, my king, and thank you.” 

They board together and the night carries them home, through the pillows of grey and white clouds. 

It is silent all the way there and T’Chaka aches with his thoughts. 

Repentance he thinks. 

He hopes his brothers rests with knowing he will not let his child walk alone for the rest of his life.


End file.
